PASSPORTLESS, luggageless and lost, we are less than an hour into a three-day gap year safety course for teenage travellers and the entire group is exasperated and nervous.

We watch, bemused, as the staff start picking on another participant, Mark Bilton, from West London, effortlessly making him into an example of what not to do.

Mr Bilton is standing at a Russian border checkpoint — or the edge of a field outside Stratford-upon-Avon — and must persuade an “official” in a Red Army hat to return his stolen passport. The exercise is designed to demonstrate how to deal with tricky situations when there is an insurmountable language barrier. We are told to try pointing, signing and bartering.

But faced with this unbending authority, Mr Bilton adopts a quintessentially British approach. He tries to reason with the guard, loudly and rapidly in English. “I’ve been to Russia before. This didn’t happened then. I’m sure you’ve got my passport in your pockets. I am not leaving until I get it back.” The border guard stonewalls him. Mr Bilton’s defeat is a particular humiliation because, at 28, he is older than the rest of the mostly teenage group of 10.

The rest of the day, spent at a youth hostel, continues in a similar vein. Between lectures, replica drugs are planted on us, our luggage is driven away, wallets are stolen and passports hidden, as every possible vulnerability is exploited by the four supervisors.

Every time, we prove to be an easy target. We quickly learn this is no holiday. This is Planet Wise, a company offering three-day, £445 residential courses in venues across the country for gappers whose only foreign experience is beach holidays and city breaks. The course includes personal awareness tips, health, safety and practical information, a certificated first aid course and individual travel advice from staff who, between them, have travelled to more than 70 countries.

They shatter our complacency with shock scenarios, surprises and invented nightmares.

Planet Wise’s course is the kind of safety net that will appeal to many middle-class parents worried at the thought that their offspring will end up in remote corners of the globe with little or no preparation. According to Lonely Planet, about 70 per cent of gappers do little or no planning. This course quickly shows that we all have a lot to learn.

“How am I going to get my hair curlers, electric toothbrush and shoes into that?” protests Melissa Biagini, pointing to one of the rucksacks being packed by a member of staff. Ms Biagini, who began the course by announcing that she did not fancy communal bedrooms so would be staying at a “proper” hotel, was told that her designer suitcase was probably not appropriate for the Far East and Australia.

Mark Hide, the director of Planet Wise, said his team work hard to get the message through to confident teenagers who are dying to spend time away from home: “Our aim is to shake them out of their ‘comfort zone’. If they’ve been targeted ruthlessly, lost their passport three times and had their luggage stolen, they are more likely to listen.”

Mr Hide, a former management guru who used to train accountants and civil servants, had the idea for the company while climbing Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in America, last year.

All the staff are keen travellers, and many of them work freelance so that they can go abroad for long periods. The course’s success rests on the help that the staff can provide from their experience. They have encountered every conceivable problem and each safety point and travelling tip is backed up with a real-life anecdote. On the first day, Mr Hide described how a friend went to Alaska without travel insurance, fell down a mountain and was left with a medical bill for £ 750,000.

Another instructor told how his deodorant leaked and set off a chemical weapons detector at a US airport. One was spat at when she arrived in an Indian village because she failed to cover her shoulders.

Above all, the course aims to be practical rather than preaching. Mr Hide is keen to emphasise that the organisers recognise the realities of gap year travelling, and that alcohol and drugs can form part of teenagers’ experiences.

“If a policeman goes ‘don’t do drugs’ then they are just going to go and do it. Our philosophy is not to preach. We don’t want to be too parent-like,” he says.

Is it worth children taking the gap year course?

Send your e-mails to debate@thetimes.co.uk

PERILS AND PITFALLS IN A WILD WORLD

• Respect other cultures
• Avoid situations you feel uncomfortable with
• Be flexible about your travel plans
• Before you go, think about cash, health, local politics and safety
• Work out a cost of living for your destinations
• Take family and bank details, addresses of British embassies, travel insurance details, numbers of travellers’ cheques and flight numbers
• Keep multiple money bags. Buy a second wallet to hand over to muggers
• Have a check-up with your GP before you go
• Photocopy or scan passport, visas, tickets and insurance documents
• Get good-quality travel insurance and don’t lie on your form
• Don’t pack too much
• Make sure you have emergency lavatory paper, baby wipes and a first-aid kit
• If you are confronted by an unsavoury person, adopt a defensive stance, be light on your feet and apologise even if you have done nothing wrong. If you find yourself being followed, enter a place with lots of people. Scream and run if necessary
• Treat border police, embassy staff and other officials politely, however rude they are. Humour does not work on these people

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